


Endings

by Laetitia_Laetitii



Series: Aileen Westbrook [11]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Gen, dimension of disaster, varrock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 14:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6332974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laetitia_Laetitii/pseuds/Laetitia_Laetitii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zemouregal is dead and it's time for the World Guardian to return to her own timeline.<br/>The short epilogue was actually written long before the actual fic, and should explain any ambiguity about the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
  
    “The braziers will burn down soon, and then we’ll finally be laid to rest. Varrock will be no more, and this world will be host to one horror less. All in all, I’d say it could have ended worse.” The old woman smiled slightly as she spoke, and though her eyes were as dry as her voice, they had never lost their glint. She paused for a moment to wrap the shawl around her shoulders tighter, and wetted her mouth from a teacup. Running a blackened tongue along withered lips, she continued: “I can feel death coming nearer to me, and it is as if expecting an old friend. But there’s a bit still left, and if there’s questions you want to ask, now is about the time.”  
   
    I pondered her words for a bit, staring at the cold tea leaves at the bottom of my cup. I knew all too well what I wanted to ask, but I could not guess whether the answer would bring more pain or lessen it. From outside the tent, I could hear cries of joy and snatches of song in broken voices. Somewhere a great crash sounded, and I would have bet my life that it had come from a statue being pulled down. The tyrant was dead, and the freed were celebrating while they waited for the final liberation.  
     
   Listening to their joy, I knew I had to ask. My absence or inactivity in this timeline had resulted in terrors too many to mention, and I had to know how it had all come to pass.

   “Aris,” I said, “have you ever met me?”  
     
   “No,” came the immediate answer. “When we first spoke, I racked my brain for your aura and feeling, and I can say with near-perfect certainty that you’ve never done set foot in Varrock, old or new, in this universe. However, if it’s answers you want, I can have a look at that palm of yours. Pro bono, this time.” As she said the last, her eyes twinkled again as they did in all universes. The woman who called herself Gypsy Aris had been born an unusually powerful seer to a world that did not treat seers kindly, and had survived by covering her natural aptitude at clairvoyance by effecting the persona of a professional swindler. I had reflected on this logic from time to time, and had almost lost my faith in humanity in the process.  
   
    From the direction of the palace gates came first the crackling of wood, and then a whooshing sound as if something large had caught fire. There were more cries and cheers, and from the repetition of a name I could guess that the people of Varrock were burying their hero. Soon traces of the smoke from the funeral pyre seeped into the tent, and at least momentarily it drowned out the stench of the dead.  
     
   “Fire away,” I said, extending my hand. “Read the lines and tell me what you see.” Aris’ grip was surprisingly strong for a dead woman. Having taken a token glance at my palm, she sank back in her chair as her eyes glazed over.  
     
   “Hmm. I don’t see you. I try and I can’t…” A shudder shook her body, and for a moment she seemed disoriented. Then she reached into her shawl, and gathering herself, she produced a stained deck of cards. Aris’ hands moved too fast to see as she dealt cards on the table, face down, her shawled elbows obstructing the view. Content with the arrangement, she leaned back, and turned over the first card.

    “You're dead, Aileen,” she said, and her eyes were empty again. She turned over the second card. “You bled to death being delivered of your fifth child. Had him too soon after the twins, you see. Should’ve waited, but the two of you never had much sense when it came to each other.” By now her voice was coming from afar, and she rocked slightly back and forth as she spoke.  
     
   “And Stían?” I asked. I had to know.  
     
   Aris turned around the third card. “He lives, alright. It was others that went to check what had been killing the cattle that day, and so he’s alive and well in Rellekka.”  
   
   “Has he remarried?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question to waste cards on.  
   
    “No,” Aris snorted. “But he will, eventually.” I tried to feel thankful, and I tried to not be jealous of the woman who would raise my children.  
     
   “And our-” I began, but she interrupted me with a flick of a card.  
     
   “The little ones are all alive, and that’s all I’m saying.”  
     
    I nodded. It was all she was saying and it was all that mattered. There were still questions of greater importance, ones concerning the Elder Gods, the Dragonkin, and the fate of the world, but as I opened my mouth, the old woman spoke over me again.  
     
   “I know what you're about to ask, Aileen, and all I can say is that I cannot see such things. They're too great and too powerful, and besides their workings have way too many moving parts. You’ve asked what your heart yearned to ask, and now I say you leave this dead world and go back to your own.”  
     
   Among the ways I have been dismissed, that was a kind one. It was plain to see my questions were too complicated, and what was more, Aris perhaps had other things to attend to before her death. I nodded, and getting up, clasped briefly the cold, stiff hands in my own.

    “See you on the other side”, she whispered, and I have seen breathing beings with less life in their eyes.  
   
    I pushed through the tent flap, and found myself in the town square of New Varrock. In the palace yard, the last of the celebrants were leaving Arrav’s pyre. All around me in the shadows, the tortured undead were retiring to their homes and seeking out their loved ones. The murmur of their voices filled the air, and for a moment the streets were alive once more. Above the fountain, the portal’s glow swirled around a now decapitated statue.  
     
   I walked out to the High Street, and stared into the dark for a while. Somewhere there was Stían, and with him in the house near Rellekka’s gates were all my children. I could have walked to them in such a short time. Misthalin, Asgarnia, Kandarin, or cutting across Wilderness and Trollheim, I could have been in Fremennik lands so soon, and at my own threshold sooner…I could almost see them, framed against the firelight and wooden walls.

    _“Mother!”_  
     
   But I knew that the limitations of the uchronia tied me as certainly as my duties in my own timeline do, and for a moment I was simply content to breathe the same air, to know they were there. Then I turned around and headed for the portal.  
  
   ***  
     
   In her tent, Aris leaned back in her chair and thought. She had no family left, and all her kin lay buried peacefully in the Varrock graveyard. She owed nobody a thing, and had no scores to settle. The flap had been left half open, and through the crack she could see the portal around the fountain. A robed silhouette appeared by it, and bent down to pick up a tiny figure from the ground. The tableau of a mother holding a child remained for a second, and then disappeared in a spark of bright light. That was that then, and the remainder was a matter of keeping herself amused.  
     
   She emptied the rest of the teapot in her cup, and wetted her mouth once more. Then, careful not to disturb what was beneath, she removed the corner of her shawl from the table, revealing three unturned cards. She still retained the adventurer’s presence fixed in her mind, together with all her unanswered questions. Aris had enough both power and time, and as all her days, she was curious about what would happen next. Sipping the cold tea through the last of her sugar lumps she turned over the cards, and read the rest of the story.


	2. Epilogue

_Just as I prepared to step through the portal and back into my own timeline, I felt something tugging at the hem of my robeskirt. Looking down, I saw a tiny figure standing at my feet, its hands balled into fists and its miniature face screwed into a defiant scowl._

_“Take with you?” it asked, and I could have sworn the small voice was shaking._

_I wanted to be sensible. I wanted to say that it was not a good idea, and that as far as I knew only I could travel between the worlds. But somehow I understood that the connection between the realms existed because one way or another the universe, or something powerful in it, had a sense of justice. Maybe it would permit me a final act of mercy._

_Without a word, I bent down to pick up the thing and pressed it to my chest, where it muttered a few token profanities into my robes. But its hands held on tightly, and the sting of its tiny claws did not disappear as I walked into the light._


End file.
